Video: Mary Katharine Ham recommends a few racy websites to O’Reilly

posted at 8:43 am on September 13, 2007 by Allahpundit

These in-studio appearances bring out the animal in her. As for her semi-defense of the Golden-Girls-meets-Prussian-Blue at the beginning of the clip, constitutional law may be on her side:

Employees who make public statements outside the course of performing their official duties retain some possibility of First Amendment protection because that is the kind of activity engaged in by citizens who do not work for the government. The same goes for writing a letter to a local newspaper, see Pickering, 391 U. S. 563, or discussing politics with a co-worker, see Rankin, 483 U. S. 378. When a public employee speaks pursuant to employment responsibilities, however, there is no relevant analogue to speech by citizens who are not government employees.

Breaking on Hot Air

Blowback

Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.

Trackbacks/Pings

Comments

I think it’s safe to say that MKH must be a morally well gronded person or slse I’d fear she’d become desensitized to all this inasanity she reports about on the web. Keeping an eye on the crazy stuff is important and I’m glad she does it but I’d like to see things get mixed up a bit and report on some good websites like military charities for wounded vets or something like that.

The underlying point is important… there is a process to these things. It is a “chill wind” if one can be removed from their jobs without due process. That applys equally to 60-year-old anti Semites as much as it does to neo-nazis or any of the folks that the ACLU would protect.

That being said, what idiot is going to put that much personal information about themselves on a public internet website? Just plain stupid.

Your absolutely right, AP. I wrote an appellate brief on this exact issue last fall, for one of my classes.

Outside of their employment, on their own time, public employees retain almost all of the rights pertaining to the First Amendment that everyone else has. One of the caveats is that the speech cannot relate directly to their position or line of work.

I don’t think the dumb old lady should be fired. If she was empolyed in a private institution I wouldn’t care but I don’t want the government to start firing people over political statements. Imagine what would happen to conservative cops if their liberal higher-ups decided supporting the war in Iraq is racist and worthy of being fired.